Friday, April 13, 2012

Charlie's Angel

Gerry Kearns was a good woman. Her husband was the president of the chamber of commerce and his family was quite wealthy, so she didn't need to work. Instead, she spent twenty hours a week as a candy striper at the local hospital. She was on the board for the local no-kill shelter and always did her best to make sure the family donated whatever money and food items they could when the local food drives came up.

So when the man limped up to her in the parking garage, she didn't think twice about trying to help him get his unruly dog in the van. She only had to see the cast on his leg and that large heart of hers took over. She had spent the latter part of her life working hard to help people. That sort of training caused a type of forgetfulness when it came to personal safety.

As she maneuvered the Golden retriever into the white, windowless, heavy duty work van the man who had requested her aid grinned and pulled the trigger on his taser. Before she could process what was happening, Gerry had been shoved onto the floor of the van and was suffering convulsions. The dog leapt out and the man just let him run off. He had no further use for the dog. After all, he had only taken it as bait for her.

Pleased with himself, the kidnapper shut the back doors of the van, and after removing the false cast he'd donned earlier he climbed up into the driver's seat while whistling a jaunty tune. He pulled the van out cautiously from the parking structure, holding the taser in his right hand in case he needed to deliver another round of incapacitating voltage into her.

It had taken him awhile to realize the superiority of the taser over the stun gun. With the taser he could zap her as many times as he wanted, or needed, to. At least until the leads fell from her flesh due to the convulsions that were knocking them about.

It gave him much more control. He sighed, heavily regretting his first kill. It had been so sloppy, but that was to be expected after all, he was new to this art. Now though, well these days he had knowledge only few did and was intimately familiar with dealing death blows. There were no mistakes any more. Hadn't been in years.

He drove her to his cabin, alternately singing and whistling for the better part of the trip. Oh, he loved how his mind was so clear after he had found one. Without his Angels things got muddled but when he found one of them he knew it was his job to send them back to heaven to be with God. This world was not safe for these beings and it was left to him to teach them that.

Once he actually convinced one of them to see his point. She ended her own life and returned to the House of the Lord forever. He was excited for his own death. He couldn't wait to see the reward he would reap for the good work he had been doing on earth.

He was brought back into the present by a whimper that had escaped from Gerry. He held down the trigger and she went quiet as her body stiffened from the current running through it.

He was home. Safe, with her in his arms. Things were looking good. He took her to the basement and immediately started on her education of the world. Using a riding crop he did his level best to split the flesh on her back and bottoms of her feet. This would teach her about the pain she would find in this world.

He never defiled them, just made sure the Angels were reunited with the God that they so selflessly served. His father told him what a good guy he was to do this for them. There had been so many lucky creatures that had passed his way and he looked back on every one of them lovingly.

He tortured her nightly for nearly two weeks. He was good at torture and knew just when to stop so as not to break their spirits too easily. He was keeping her docile with a hefty dose of Ketamine.

Sedated by the animal tranquilizer, Gerry was living out a hell she could never have imagined existed. Reality was sucked away along with her will. As day blended into night all she knew was that she was being punished and she didn't understand why.

She saw there lived a giant spider in her corner of the basement. During a severe hallucination from the Ketamine she spoke with the arachnid and was told he was sorry she was there. She spoke with the spider almost daily and sometimes when the drugs were too potent, the spider talked back. Sometimes the spider grew so large she just knew it was going to eat her.

As the days turned to weeks she became a bit more used to the drugs and began thinking clearly. At times she thought clear enough to realize she needed to start planning her escape.

She was not too far removed from humanity. From her little corner she could see the security camera he had set up. People came by all the time. No one could hear her scream. A plan began formulating in her mind, one that would change her soul even more so than the torture she had endured.

She would have to kill him. His death would make her world safe again and she had to make sure no one else suffered the way she had been. A closer examination of her bonds revealed she was stuck in a handcuff/leg shackle combo (similar to what is used in jail) and that it was affixed to a chain which had been wrapped around several wooden support beams in the basement and padlocked closed.

One day a large group of people showed up as if he was having some sort of party. It was a perfect time for her to escape. He'd come down and told her the horrors she would face if she tried to leave or get any of his guests' attention. She had to risk it though, there might not be a chance for her to run again. He never cleaned her wounds and several of the bloody welts were starting to reek with infection. She badly needed medical help. Not to mention psychiatric. After a fourth car pulled up the driveway she began looking around for her salvation.

Her gaze swept the room searching for anything that could be used to undo the handcuffs. She whimpered, clawing through the drawers on the tool chest nearest her, hoping to find something that could break, cut, or pick the restraints.

She found an old claw hammer and tried using her left hand to smash the links of the chain connecting the cuffs to the shackles. She knew from experience that the basement was soundproofed in some way because her screams and cries brought no response from any one of the people who had visited him while she was being held. She didn't worry about the noise of the metal hammer on the chains for this reason.

It wasn't long before the link she was hammering gave way and her hands were free from her legs. Now came the hard part, trying to free her hands from each other. The shackles gave her a couple feet of movement and after some attempts she found that if needed to she could run with them on. She wanted to get her hands free first. If he came down for any reason she wanted to be able to fight him. So grabbing the hammer in her teeth she attempted to bang the links in between her wrist cuffs trying to free her hands completely.

It wasn't working. She couldn't get the force needed to provide any serious blow to the links. She decided to try something else and started banging on the metal band around her wrist, with the other hand. She held back her screams as hit after hit fell upon her aching, raw wrist. Before too long she heard a weird click and the mangled cuff fell open.

She allowed herself ten seconds to celebrate before moving on to the other wrist. In her excitement she hit the cuff too hard and heard a loud crack as she fractured her wrist. She howled with the agony and as the pain dulled to a throbbing she noticed that she had managed to open that cuff as well.

Taking the hammer into her good hand she began beating at the leg shackles with a renewed fervor. It wasn't long before her legs were free. She sobbed with joy and moved for the stairs.

All she could do was hope that no one saw her. She crept up the basement stairs whispering prayer after prayer under her breath. That same breath caught in her throat when the squeak of rusty hinges announced the opening of the basement door.

He had forgotten to lock it! What luck! She was thanking God and looking around the room she had come out into. It was a den, and it was expensive. Whomever had kidnapped her didn't do it for the money. This thought scared her instantly. Money was a motivation she could understand. Greed was found the world over but if there was no reason for greed...than why?

She peered around the corner and gasped quietly. It was a huge group of people. They were all standing around a tv. She craned her neck and saw what they were watching. It was her. She gasped again then her bladder quickly emptied down her legs as two dozen people stared at her with an unnatural hunger. The oddest thing happened and money exchanged hands. At that point the realization dawned on her that they were betting on her life.

She stared dumbly at a board with odds scribbled across it. Everything from whether or not she would cry whole tortured to 'would she try to escape' was covered. The people who had been visiting the house all this time had not only heard her screams, all of them, but they had also bet on them. Her pain had been their boon.

He looked at her and was overcome with sadness. She had been a fun Angel to play with but Daddy always said that the odds must lay with the house. He sighed his regret and fired the entire clip of his P226 into her brain. "Guess Charlie needs a new angel, huh Dad?"